The Lit Review |96| Cork Literary Gathering
News
Cork Literary Gathering
Are you living in Cork? Have you, as I’m sure many others have, read Graham Norton’s debut novel Holding and thought, hey, maybe I can be a writer too? Well you’re in luck then, because a new monthly literary gathering has just launched in Graham’s home county. Fiction at the Friary had its first session in The Friary, North Mall, with Cork writer William Wall as their first guest. Irish writers Madeline D’Arcy and Danielle McLaughlin are the organisers of these free events, which will include “readings by guest authors throughout 2017, along with open mic, optional writing exercises, occasional book reviews and plenty of conversation.” Future guests are said to include Eimear Ryan, co-editor of literary journal Banshee Lit, and emerging writer Danny Denton, whose debut novel The Earlie King and The Kid in Yellow, will be published by Granta in 2018. Fiction at the Friary will be held on the last Sunday of every month.
Amazon Literary Prize
Amazon Kindle has launched the Kindle UK Storyteller Award, which is described as a “new literary prize recognising newly published work in the English language across any genre.” Any author who has published their book through Kindle Direct Publishing on Amazon between 20th February and 19th May 2017 is eligible for the prize, which is £20,000 and a marketing campaign to support the book on Amazon.co.uk, as well as the opportunity to have their book translated for international sales. Alessio Santarelli, EU Kindle Content Director at Amazon has said that they hope that the prize will “encourage aspiring authors and those who have already been published, to get writing and make their new stories available to readers across the world. Publishing a book has never been easier, and the Kindle Storyteller Award will reward the author whose story resonates most with both readers and literary experts.”
Children’s Literacy in Australia
2017 now feels even more like a crescendo to the apocalypse, as it is revealed that the National Assessment Program Literacy and Numeracy test in Australia now quizzes children on emojis rather than classic works of literature. Speaking to the Courier Mail, senior research fellow with the Australian Catholic University Kevin Donnelly said that “the bar is set so low that it is giving students, teachers and parents a false sense of the standards… By Year 9, I would expect that rather than having a very simplistic, superficial text as this one, there would be more focus on students being able to read more literary works, whether it is an extract, or poem, or prose, where they are asked to infer and deduce more high order skills.”
Events
This weekend the 5th Annual Doolin Writers’ Weekend will take place at the Hotel Doolin, Co. Clare. The event spans from Friday the 3rd to Sunday the 5th, with guests including Mike McCormack, Sara Baume, Rita-Ann Higgins, Alan McMonagle, Karl Parkinson as well as Stinging Fly Editor Declan Meade, Editor of the Award winning ‘Long Gaze Back’ Anthology Sinead Glesson, literary agent Sallyanne Sweeney, and commissioning editor of Harper Collins Anna Kelly.
Competition
The closing day for the Stringy Bark Short Story Award closes on this week on Sunday, Febuary 5th. Stories must be, no matter how remotely, connected to Australia and must be aimed at a maturer audience. Entry is A$12 and the first prize is A$450 in cash, publication in the Stringybark Short Story Award anthology, an e-book and paperback copy of the anthology and a choice of any two Stringybark anthologies (other than the Stringybark Short Story Award anthology). Click here for full entry conditions.
